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Saturday, April 29, 2006

I just finished reading the Futurelab report "Open Education: The Potential of Open Source Approaches for Education." It was one of a number of reports on Open Source software in education that I had downloaded to my computer and planned to read through quickly when I had time, expecting to find just another positive appraisal of Open Source software in some specific educational program. Instead, I found myself captivated, taking a couple of hours to carefully read every word and take notes.

This report is a must-read.

Most discussions of Open Source software for education focus on what I'll call the "first wave:" the cost-savings to schools of using Open Source programs that provide comparable functionality to commercial or proprietary software, both for use in the classroom (e.g., OpenOffice productivity suite) or for school infrastructure (e.g., Apache web server). This will save schools money, and will also allow students to use the same programs at home without the financial burden or having to purchase commercial software. I believe that this first wave will be of tremendous benefit while not requiring any dramatic changes in how schools operate.

I can also see that there will be a "second wave" of influence from the Open Source movement: the awareness of and dissemination of teaching material, inspired by the licensing methodologies of the Open Source movement, and made possible by the incredible connectedness that the Internet provides. Educational institutions, publishers, and teachers will share and collaborate on teaching materials and methods. I am not a teacher, but I would imagine that this is already happening to a great degree informally, but will continue to be formalized and will grow.

But it is the "third wave" that intrigues me, and which I think could bring about the most explosive, exciting changes to how we think about education. Open Source software is built through a peer-production system, and the influence of this methodology could bring incredibly positive benefits to the world of education. Imagine: students who work on collaborative projects that utilize and build on the technologies of the Open Source movement, but also contribute back to those same resources. As schools begin to use tools that have been created by individuals from all over the world (think of Wikipedia), students will naturally become builders themselves because that is how these Open Source or Open Technologies work--they ask for, and encourage, the users to become contributors. From knowledge-bases to actual software applications, think of the excitement of not only learning about something, but becoming a contributor. I can imagine incredible possibilities: a student who helps modify a database accounting program for a local homeless shelter, a study group that focuses on a significant historical event and looks at online source documents to detail one particular aspect of that event, or a class that works to create online documentation for a new programming language.

One small story may help to demonstrate how exciting and motivating this can be. As a family history buff, some years ago I received an email from a woman asking if I had ever heard of a Kate Hargadon (my same last name) who had been the traveling companion of her grandmother on the Titanic. This intrigued me, so searched the web to find that all the Titanic websites had information on a young woman, spelled "Kate Hagardon," 17, from Ballysodare, Co Sligo, Ireland who boarded the Titanic at Queenstown and who died in the sinking. Because all of the members of the "Hargadon" family trace back to County Sligo in Ireland, it seemed possible to me that "Hagardon" was actually mis-transcribed from "Hargadon." I wrote the Irish Titanic Historical Society, who had someone look up the original passenger manifest, and found that "Kate Hargardon" was in fact "Kate Hargadon." All of the historical sites were informed, and for many years every mention of "Kate Hargadon" carried a footnote acknowledging me as the "historian" who had discovered this.

You can imagine how much fun that was for me. And, truth be told, it wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it was me being involved in history in a very real and tangible way, and making a concrete contribution. This is the kind of excitement that I imagine that the "third wave" of Open Source will bring to education. I believe it will mark the beginning of a wonderful period of learning and contributing for students.

TechMission (www.TechMission.org) supports Christian community computer centers in their effort to provide access, skills and relationships needed to succeed in the information age. They recently sent a list of Free and Open Source Software that they are planning to put on in a distributable CD to go with refurbished computers. The list categories are: Office, Project Management, Net Safety, Computer Utilities, Graphics, Internet, Multimedia, and Educational.

Office

Name: Open OfficeWebsite: http://www.openoffice.org/Description: OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual officesuite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major officesuites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.

Name: Abi WordWebsite: http://www.abisource.com/Description: AbiWord is a free word processing program similar toMicrosoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

Name: eBaseWebsite: http://www.ebase.org/Description: ebase is a complete nonprofit database solution. With it’scomprehensive feature set, ebase can help you manage donors, prospects,volunteers, activists, email lists and more – all in one placeProject Management

Name: Open WorkbenchWebsite: http://www.openworkbench.org/Description: Open Workbench is an open source Windows-based desktopapplication that provides robust project scheduling and managementfunctionality and is free to distribute throughout the enterprise. Whenusers need to move beyond desktop scheduling to a workgroup, division orenterprise-wide solution, they can upgrade to CA's Clarity™ system, aproject and portfolio management system that offers bidirectionalintegration with Open Workbench.

Name: Free MindWebsite: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_PageDescription: FreeMind is a premier free mind mapping software written inJava. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivitytool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is fasterthan that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "followlink" operations.

Name: X3WatchWebsite: http://www.x3church.com/x3watch/Description: X3watch is an accountability software program helping withonline integrity. Whenever you browse the Internet and access a site whichmay contain questionable material, the program will save the site name onyour computer in a hidden folder. A person of your choice (an accountabilitypartner) will receive an email containing all possible questionable sitesyou may have visited within the month. This information is meant toencourage open and honest conversation between friends and help us all bemore accountable.

Name: Dan’s GuardianWebsite: http://dansguardian.org/Description: DansGuardian is an award winning Open Source web contentfilter which currently runs on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X,HP-UX, and Solaris. It filters the actual content of pages based on manymethods including phrase matching, PICS filtering and URL filtering. It doesnot purely filter based on a banned list of sites like lesser totallycommercial filters.

Name: Accountability PalWebsite: http://sourceforge.net/projects/accpal/Description: Accountability Pal monitors your network and keeps track of whois using the Internet and what they are viewing, downloading, uploading,etc. It emails a report of each user's activity to the person/people youspecify. Great for parents and businesses.Computer Utilities

Name: SmoothwallWebsite: http://smoothwall.org/Description: SmoothWall is a best-of-breed Internet firewall/router,designed to run on commodity hardware, and to give an easy-to-useadministration interface to those using it.

Name: ClonezillaWebsite: http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/Description: To clone a system, you might be familiar with the commercialpackage Norton Ghost®, or the opensource solution Partition Image. However,it takes time to massively clone system to many computers. You may befamiliar with the commercial package Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® withmulticasting. Now, Clonezilla is the opensource clone system (OCS) withunicasting and multicasting. With DRBL and network boot enabled clientcomputers, the only thing you have to prepare is a Clonezilla server, andyou do not have to prepare a bootable CD or floppy with Partition Image forevery client computer.

Name: Rootkit RevealerWebsite: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.htmlDescription: RootkitRevealer is an advanced rootkit detection utility. Itruns on Windows NT 4 and higher and its output lists Registry and filesystem API discrepancies that may indicate the presence of a user-mode orkernel-mode rootkit. RootkitRevealer successfully detects all persistentrootkits published at www.rootkit.com, including AFX, Vanquish andHackerDefender (note: RootkitRevealer is not intended to detect rootkitslike Fu that don't attempt to hide their files or registry keys). If you useit to identify the presence of a rootkit please let us know!

Name: Knoppix-LinkWebsite: http://www.knoppix.org/Description: KNOPPIX is a bootable CD or DVD with a collection of GNU/Linuxsoftware, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards,sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be usedas a productive Linux desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted andused as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is notnecessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-flydecompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installedon it. (over 8 GB on the DVD "Maxi" edition). This has tools to fixcomputers Linux and other computers as well.

Graphics:

Name: The GimpWebsite: http://www.gimp.org/Description: GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freelydistributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, imagecomposition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in manylanguages.

Name:Povray 3.5Website: http://www.povray.org/Description: The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totallyfree tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is availablein official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux.

Internet

Name: FireFoxWebsite: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/Description: The award-winning open source Web browser. Browse the Web withconfidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoyimprovements to performance, ease of use and privacy.

Name: BeonexWebsite: www.beonex.comDescription: Beonex (0.8.2) is a full-featured web-browser and email/newsclient targeted at end-users—both individuals at home and companies of allsizes. It is based on Mozilla source code, which in turn is based on theNetscape Communicator code

Name: CsoundWebsite: http://sourceforge.net/projects/csound/Description: Csound is a sound and music synthesis system, providingfacilities for composition and performance over a wide range of platforms.It is not restricted to any style of music, having been used for many yearsin at least classical, pop, techno, ambient..

Educational

Name: Tux TypingWebsite: http://tuxtype.sourceforge.net/Description: Tux Typing is an educational typing tutor for children. Itfeatures several different types of game play, at a variety of difficultylevels.

Name: ChildsplayWebsite: http://childsplay.sourceforge.net/Description: Childsplay is a 'suite' of educational games for youngchildren. It's written in Python and uses the SDL-libraries to make it moregames-like then, for instance, gcompris. The aim is to be educational and atthe same time be fun to play

Name: CelestiaWebsite: http://celestia.sourceforge.net/Description: Celestia is real-time 3D space simulation which lets you travelthrough our solar system and to over 100,000 stars in our neighborhood.

Name: Flashcards 3.0Website: http://rawilson.net/shareware/index.htmlDescription: I put this together for my kids to practice their basic mathfacts. It's a simple flashcard program that covers addition, subtraction,multiplication and division. You can select any one of the operations topractice on, or have the program mix them up. Though the default is 10,facts up to 100 are selectable. Version 3.0 includes the ability to practicefractions. A timer or a clock runs in the background, and a count ofcorrect/incorrect answers is displayed. This program is freeware. Enjoy.

Name: Certification GenieWebsite: http://in.tech.yahoo.com/010721/94/11n8x.htmlDescription: These are free, fully functional MCSE Track practice examswith over 500 questions, including scenarios, exhibits, and detailedexplanations. This is the only program you need to fully prepare yourselffor the MCSE NT 4.0 exams. It includes Networking Essentials, NTWorkstation, Server, Enterprise, TCP/IP, and IIS 4.0.Note: You must register at the website to get the serial number to unlockthis exam.

Name: Exam IIWebsite: http://www.deltafarms.com/setup.exeDescription: A program for designing and administering exams. It can alsobe used by a student for preparing for practice exams.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Folks, a while back I built a rolling laptop cart for old laptops we had at the school that were pretty useless trying to run Windows, but work wonderfully as thin clients. With 12 laptop stations adding to the existing 5-9 thin clients in each classroom, we can provide a class with an instant 1:1 ratio for activities like creative writing, research, etc. Unlike most laptop carts, this one has removable shelves to put the laptops on so kids need only pull up a chair and start working. Since the laptops are thin clients, they stay on all the time, so transition from one group to another merely requires logging off one account and logging on another. It used to take 10-15 minutes to roll the cart into a room, distribute the laptops to students, boot them, and get connected to the wireless network, now when a class signs up for access to the cart for an hour, the students are on the cart working for at least 58 minutes of that hour. The laptops are all hard wired to a K12LTSP server on the cart with UPS battery backup, and there is a printer on the cart.

The cart has been a huge success. It's now placed in a wide section of a hallway with ample room for it, and classes on that floor share the cart; the principal reports that kids are on the cart every time she's looked at it.

Based on that success, we're building two more carts for similar floors, and what has dawned on us is that this is a fantastic way to transition cost effectively to a 1:1 ratio in the school. With 5-9 clients and a 12 station laptop cart outside in the hallway nearby, shared by only a handful of classes (as opposed to the entire school), the teachers get a 1:1 ratio available to them every day.

I'm posting this info not only because I want to share our experiences, but because it's a new (or return to an old) paradigm: the distributed computer clusters model. By distributing clusters of servers and thin clients, we move quickly to a daily 1:1 ratio for the entire school. We hear every day about the two extremes (computer lab and handful of PCs in each class vs. 1:1 ratio in entire grades or entire school). Our model is in between these two cases, and is much more cost and space effective than trying to put a 1:1 ratio in each class overnight, and faster than merely gradually increasing the number of PCs in each class. Until we move to all LCD monitors and diskless mini ITX thin clients, we simply could not put all those PCs in a classroom, nor would we have sufficient electrical power for that many CRTs and conventional PCs.

On another related note, we have found that the difference between having 1-2 working PCs per class and at least 5 PCs per class is huge: having 1-2 working PCs per class is almost like having none, the teachers didn't regularly incorporate the technology into their instruction. But with at least 5, the teachers are now all creating 'centers' based on the PCs, where at least a third of their students get to work on the PCs for up to two hours every day without having to go to the computer lab. It's been a seachange in how our teachers are using technology, and some teachers are already reporting performance and motivational benefits of K12LTSP and more PCs. The youngest grade teachers are raving about GCompris and Child's Play.

I got interested in this whole 1:1 ratio thing over the weekend, and found the following links for those also interested, first is a Massachusetts school that put laptops in front of every higher grade student:http://www.portical.org/Presentations/bebell/

Summary slide:What did we learn from exploring ?• Technology Used More Frequently in 1:1 settings• Higher motivation and engagement in 1:1 settings• Computers became students’ primary writing tool in 1:1 settings• Differences in classroom structure• Differences in home computer use for 1:1 students

We've seen all of these effects at Brandon except that we haven't explored how home PC use may be changing, and have also seen improved student performance directly linked to more PCs.

I know there are not many Elementary folks working with K12LTSP - that is one reason why the word needs to get out.

I think often the general word is that the main reason to use Linux Thin Clients is that it is cheap. This tends to be a total turn-off to teachers who infer that this is the old "Try to make do with junk..." or for the Elementary School folks the "Give the little kids the hand-me-downs from the middle and high schools.

Yes, cost is a factor but the real selling point is that of freedom... Freedom from limited access, Freedom from students losing files, Freedom from recurrent breakdowns/viruses/spyware, Freedom from being limited to the software programs that your school has purchased, Freedom from being bound inside the walls of your classroom and school.

I do have to say that I was not enthused with the K12package from the beginning. It took me quite some time to understand what a marvel this K12LTSP package really is. My brain still has trouble understanding how it can be that you take a server with processors that are just a bit faster than some XP machines we have, put K12LTSP Linux software on the server, and hitch tens of clients to the server and they run essentially as fast at the XP machines. The first time I was shown the K12LTSP package it was based on a single PC as a server and thus was very slow and unwieldy. The second time a real server was used but it was an older model so the thin clients were still slow. It wasn't until I had a real K12LTSP server connected at my school to play around with that I started to see the light...

People also need to understand that it doesn't need to be all Linux or nothing... We still have Windows machines. Grades 3-5 teachers still have at least one Windows machine for their use in their classrooms and access to Windows laptops for their classes. The primary student accounts for grades 3-5 are in K12LTSP but I have just set up Samba so that students can access their Linux home folders from Windows. Since we have Star Office set up on the Windows machines the students can work on their files no matter which machines they are using. Starting with Open Source software on Windows allows a much easier migration to K12ltsp. The grades K-2 classes are still working with Windows but will probably switch to Thin Clients for writing projects next year.

I think the main problem with K12LTSP is getting so many folks out of their comfort zone but the payoff is big time... Embracing K12LTSP also enables classes to tap into the myriad of educational resources on the net. One thing that greatly assisted our thin client program is that this year the SAU required all teachers who give homework to have updated homework pages. Rather than go with Homework Now or other commercial ventures, our teachers were taught how to use Star Office/Open Office to make webpages. It works fine - not all the bells and whistles of the dedicated web software but it built on their basic word processing skills, got them used to this new office suite, and then provided a ready avenue for extending these efforts to classroom websites filled with Internet links and to the use of internet-based curricular units. Sure, not everyone jumped at this opportunity but a few did and have pulled many other folks along... And the students are benefiting greatly.

I do have to admit on my part it has been quite a bit of work especially since I am still teaching classes essentially full time to boot. I think there needs to be more info available as integrated cookbook guides to moving to open source software and K12LTSP especially for elementary schools. The K12 package is not really well set up for elementary schools. Our students are forbidden to use Google but the stock K12 package blazes Google all over the place in Firefox... Yes you can change it but the first impression has been made...

So how do we make this a seller????? I don't know ... We need to help more elementary folks get started and open their minds to the possibilities... Maybe focusing on the opportunities that all this affords rather than getting stuck on platforms etc... Speed, Ease of Use, Roving Desktops, Tapping into Internet resources... Successful student use of technology... Elementary schools serve as the foundations for learning... It is important that students see technology for its use as a fantastic resource for learning not just as another video game platform...

But we're still not quite up to that "gotta have it" stage... NCLB doesn't help either - it tends to have schools looking for quick fixes rather than real innovations...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Something interesting has happened for me. Mostly because of my work with Linux, thin-client, and our LiveKiosk.com WebStations, it doesn't matter what computer I work at any more.

I think the computer world is moving in two somewhat parallel directions: portability and independence. Laptop computers have clearly become the business PC of choice, and portable devices are going to allow more and more to be done no matter where you are. Independence, on the other hand, means that no matter what computer (or web browser) I am using, I can accomplish most everything I need to do. While portability comes with a price tag, independence actually costs less because I can use many older computers just as well as a newer one.

I use Gmail for my email. Blogger for blogging. Google Calendar for calendaring. (There is a trend here with Google, but just for the moment.) ZohoWriter for word-processing (web-based, no less!). SugarCRM for customer-relationship work. Gizmo for VOIP calling. And Real VNC for remote work that must take place on a specific machine. While I still carry my laptop around, it's no longer because it has all my important data on it--it's just to have a device that will access the web.

(I've got to get on a soap-box about Gizmo a little: www.gizmoproject.com. No monthly fee. 1 cent/minute calls in the US, and 2 - 3 cent/minute calls overseas. Very livable-quality calls. I remember when I used to have to negotiate to pay 25 cents per minute for US long-distance. Now I can't even imagine signing up for a VOIP service with a $20 monthly charge .)

My in-laws finally got a high-speed connection to the Internet after years of using dial-up. We spent the day at their house last week, and working from their computer for a few hours was indistinguishable from working from my own. At least for now, I've chosen independence over portability, and I like it.

The constant pull of technology--cell phones, email, and the web--seems to be taking its toll. I don't think this will come as much of a surprise to anyone who didn't grow up to the interruption-ridden life that technology now provides for us. Maybe a little tongue-in-cheek (and maybe not), it seems surprising that anything of significance can get done in this environment. As reported in a recent article by Reuters, "[w]orkers completed two-thirds of their work in an average day last year, down from about three-quarters in a 1994 study, according to research conducted for Day-Timers Inc., an East Texas, Pennsylvania-based maker of organizational products." The article quotes John Challenger, who says that by speeding everything up, technology has slowed everything down. "We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you're on to the next thing." And not only is the formal work week getting longer, but I notice from time stamps that people are working on their email (and sending replies) late at night and on weekends. Me included!

However, technology has changed work in two real ways over the last ten years that are worth remembering:

First, it's increased communication and presentation significantly, so arguably the two-thirds of our work that we are getting done is more than the three-quarters of work that was getting done ten years ago. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I have a sense that it is. Maybe what we are saying is that it feels like we are getting less done because the expectations are higher. And that goes along with the shift in sensitivity I think we've seen over the last fifteen years away from the worker--companies that had been conscientious employers for decades began rounds of layoffs as a profit improvement focus, and the duties of those laid off often just added to the existing workload of those remaining.

Second, technology has given some flexibility in work schedules and habits. Telecommuting was a rarity ten years ago--now I frequently find I am talking to someone on their cell or VOIP phone while they are someplace remote from their official work desk--if they even have one. I personally like that flexibility.

So even though we feel more frazzled, I'm not sure that means we are getting less done. But I still think there is a real problem.

It might help to re-frame the issue here a little. I don't think the real issue is quantity of work. I think it's quality of work. Just as I find it is hard to have a serious conversation with someone who is taking cell phone calls or checking their email while we are talking, there are certain work situations that require focus and attention, and carving that time out in the new busy work world gets harder and harder with every advance in technology. It's the work of Stephen Covey's "important, not urgent" quadrant that often gets lost in our frenetic world today.

It's not just that we work in an environment of constant interruption, but also that we have to struggle with the feeling that we are always behind in our keeping up with changes taking place. The pace of business innovation is incredible: witness Web 2.0 companies coming out of nowhere and being worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of months. How can one possibly keep up with what is going on? And if we don't feel caught up, how can we make smart decisions?

I used to read books. Now I read blogs. Classic books were the result of years of thinking about serious issues, and trying to communicate the core issues of being human. Blogs are wonderful (I like to think of blogging as "open source ideas"), but I miss the weight and calm of good book. I also miss the thoughtfulness of working with others at a reasonable pace.

My personal solution in the last few years has been to keep a daily journal. There is something about writing down the important events of my life, and my responses and reactions to them, that helps to give me a sense of balance, reflection, and focus--and helps me to get ready to face the next day...

Saturday, April 15, 2006

My wife and I have four children, all of whom are very different--and that difference is reflected in their academic lives. I think it says something about our generation (we're in our forties) that we have felt comfortable creating individual academic programs for them. One has been home-schooled since fourth grade (a self-motivated learner), one is in a private school (not a self-motivated learner), and two are in public school. I would imagine that this variety of educational paths would have been relatively unheard of in my parents' day, but for our friends, while it's not normal, it's not that unique.

If our school experience is, at least partially, to prepare us for what our work life will be, then the experience our family has had may actually become the norm. I've noticed a number of our friends' older children have been graduating from high school early, taking the GED, and then starting college courses early. Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that the adult life that they see ahead of themselves (and that their parents see) does not appear to reward the educational road most traveled. The publicized superstars of our world today--in music, sports, and business--are generally not those who took the common path and pursued the American dream by going to college, paying their dues in as they slowly moved up the corporate ladder, then using their accumulated wisdom to help run the large companies of the world. No, our new superstars come out of nowhere in their early twenties or even in their teens, dashing to fame and fortune in a matter of months even. From unknown to American Idol or Web 2.0 genius or NBA starter overnight.

But even when we devote some logic to this discussion and recognize that media coverage is not reality for most of us in the regular world, we do still recognize that some fundamental shifts have taken place. The 1990's saw a dramatic change in how we view employment, employer responsibility, and worker loyalty: companies that had never laid off an employee began large-scale "reorganizations," and not always because they had to. Maybe it was the democratization of the stock market--if we are all "owners," then it's hard to argue with companies making changes for the benefit of the shareholders. And worker loyalty seemed to extend just as far as the stock options did. Whatever the causes, companies and workers see each other differently now than they did fifteen years ago, and the average worker will work in more jobs in his lifetime than ever before.

So what skills will be needed for those entering the labor force in the coming years? And what type of school environment will help prepare him or her for an environment of rapidly changing challenges, and provide an ability to steer an independent course? And what role will or can technology in the classroom play in this changed reality?

First, I think it's important not to forget that technology can be addictive. Technology for the sake of technology is a significant trap, and one that occurs with some frequency today. Educational issues can be very complex, and it is tempting (and common) to tout today's newest technology advance as the answer to our educational shortcomings or problems. Educational software for the home PC was all the rage ten years ago--until we discovered that most of it didn't actually help our children understand math any better. I think most of us understand the significant influence of a great teacher in our lives, and no matter what the technological advances, we still need other people to help guide and teach us, and I would quickly trade all the best educational software programs in the world for a teacher who truly cares about a child. And I don't care how snappy your PowerPoint presentation is if you haven't learned to think deeply about a topic and write an essay that reflects that thinking.

Now, having said that, we must also understand that not having access to computers, understanding how they work, and knowing how to use them will put a child at a serious disadvantage in life. And advances in computer technology are going to dramatically change education at all levels. The ability that computers have to provide direct access to incredible materials should not be underestimated as a powerful change in education. If we think that the printing press had a profound impact on world history, wait until we understand what the Internet has done and will still yet do.

I think we can fully expect that high competency in computer-driven collaborative work, blogging or on-line idea expression, open source programming, technical adaptability, and web research will be essential for the job markets of tomorrow. How do you teach those things? And especially, how do you teach them with teachers who may not have those skills themselves? This is a dilemma we have to solve--and what makes it particularly difficult is that simply throwing money at computers won't actually solve it. We are going to have to find economical ways to make sure there is plenty of access to computers in schools, and then help teachers 1) become proficient in the computer tools that are available and prepared to be learning something new themselves each day, 2) find ways to harness the incredible creativity provided by the Internet, and 3) figure out how to help the ADD-prone generations (whose talents lie in juggling email, text messaging, web browsing, homework, and cell-phone conversations all at once) to focus on enduring truths and academic self-discipline.

As David Thornburg said recently in an article for eSchool News: "The main thing that's holding technology back [in schools] is ... a fear--a well-placed fear, I might add--that if technology becomes ubiquitous, it will totally transform the practice of education. There are a lot of people who don't want the practice of education transformed, because they're very comfortable with it."

For some years I've lamented the fact that with four children, sometimes in four different schools, there wasn't an easy way for me to merge their school calendars onto my own. I imagined a service where organizations send their electronic calendar data, and I could choose the ones that I was interested in, and then see a customized combined version.

Again, the new collaborative web makes the idea of any organization going to the expense of "gathering" information pretty passe... And when I discovered CalendarHub, I thought I'd finally found the calendar tool that would make that vision possible. I've been using CalendarHub for a couple of months now, and I have nothing but good to say about it.

Unfortunately, when Google announced their new calendar program a few days ago, I found that I had to switch from CalendarHub. That was really bittersweet for me. I can only imagine all the work that CalendarHub has gone to as part of making their product so good. But Google Calendar is maybe a little better in ways that really count.

First, Google Calendar is faster loading for me. OK, since I frequently sit on the bleeding edge of technology, I am obliged to hand-hold family members to get them to see the benefits of something I like. I think most of my close family "got" CalendarHub, but it was just slow enough that they didn't really use it--or at least, they didn't use it like I was using it.

Second, the user interface is simpler and cleaner. While CalendarHub has a more professional look to it, Google Calendar seems to be much more functional for me.

Third, the integration with Gmail is significant--but more important is the fact that Google Calendar comes from Google, and so is likely to be widely adopted. Which means that it will be very easy for our local junior high school (or some forward-thinking parent) to set up a Google account, export their calendar data, and publish a URL with Google Calendar that I can link to. And this, I believe, represents the possibility for a significant social change with regard to calendaring. Of course, the technology has been around to do this for many years. But Google has the potential to bring it into the mainstream of life very quickly, and we'll all benefit from it. Except the CalendarHubs of the world.

It's interesting to note that with open formats like ical and csv, switching everyone in our family from CalendarHub to Google Calendar took under an hour--it was just exporting their existing data and importing it into Google Calendar. I think that may be representative of a lot of the newest technologies: when a technology is well-presented (and it has to be), it should only take a short amount of time to start using. And since we all have limited time and bandwidth, when we find something better, we are likely to switch. Loyalty is short-lived. Google is seeing this from the other side with Google Video vs. YouTube. YouTube is just better. Incredible to think that most of us didn't know anything about either of them a few short months ago. What an amazing time to be alive.

Having found myself on the losing end of a technology change (selling used computers to schools--seemed like a good idea six years ago!), I have to take my hat off to CalendarHub and say: I hope you surprise me by finding a way to survive the Google freight train. If not, thanks for producing something terrific and showing the way.

We'll also have a "birds of a feather" meeting on Open Source software in K12 schools, to be followed by a proposed dinner event with those interested in talking about the future of Open Source software in Education.

In addition to the Open Source lab, we'll have a "Playground" area with 6 booths to showcase different Open Source technologies real-time. Currently planned are booths for:

Mike Huffman from Indiana has also said that he will be attending, and we're going to try and find a venue for his participation as well--many of us are very interested in an update on the Indiana ACCESS program!

This is a 17-page condensed English version of a 65 page report by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research about the use of free software in Norway's schools. In Norway, a version of Linux called Skolelinux has been created that is quite clever. Skolelinux uses Debian and a single-CD installation concept which allows one to install either a "main server," a "thin-client server," a client machine, or a standalone version for home use--all from the same CD.

While the technical details (and cost analyses) here are a little difficult to understand, due mostly to translation issues, the conclusions are significant. All told there are 234 schools using this system in Norway, with 33,000 client machines, and 101,000 pupils and teachers participating. And from what I can tell, the costs per computer appear to be less than half the cost of Windows by direct comparison with the City of Oslo, which runs both Skolelinux and Windows.

"The main conclusion is that no pedagogic, technical, or economical objections [to] using free software in schools [remain] valid."

TechSoup.org recently published a comparison by Idealware of Microsoft Office and Open Office here.

Acknowledging that a full comparison was outside the scope of their intent, they focus on word processing, spreadsheet use, and email and calendar (which is not technically in Open Office, but Idealware substitutes two other Open Source programs: Thunderbird for email and Sunbird for calendar).

This is an article that doesn't draw conclusions for you, but pretty clearly spells out the differences in the two products, while giving a good overview of what Open Source software is. Even though the article is geared toward U.S.-based non-profit groups, who can obtain Microsoft Office for "free or almost free," they still find much to promote in the Open Source model.

The article concludes with: "Personally, we like and use just about every piece of software mentioned in this article. You might want to consider installing both office suites to allow your users a choice. Personally, we like having choices."

I think Open Office for schools makes a lot of sense for a couple of reasons that the article doesn't mention.

Microsoft Office is not "free or almost free" for schools, and even though significantly discounted, does represent a substantial cost to schools. If Open Office is comparable to Microsoft Office, many schools will find that the savings make it worth switching.

Open Office can be freely given to students to take home and put on their home computers. Especially for low-income families, this provides a significant bridge between their schoolwork and what they can accomplish at home.

I'm old enough that there wasn't "word processing" when I was in high school (good old typing class!), but I've used many different word processors in my life, including some online ones now (ZohoWriter and Writely). If we are teaching "word processing" instead of the clerical skill of using a particular word processor, then there is an educational argument toward using alternative products that perform comparably.

Of course, I understand that many teachers have developed specific curricula around Microsoft Office, and may not feel they have the option to switch. But certainly, for free, it's worth a test drive at least. Probably the easiest way to test the most popular Open Source programs that run on Windows is to download the OpenCD, available here.

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